Menu

Category Archives: News

Flibanserin is a newly formulated drug that is used to counter decreased sex drive in women by boosting their libido. Referred to as female Viagra, this medication managed to ignite the debate of medicine and sexuality. Let’s take a closer look at Flibanserin, and how this unique formula was discovered.

Flibanserin – What you Need to Know

This latest contender was developed by Boehringer Ingelheim, a German firm. Flibanserin essentially belongs to a broad class of medications that are used for treating depression, like Zoloft, Prozac, Welbutrin, etc. As a matter of fact, this libido enhancing medication was originally developed for treating depression, but clinical trials proved the drug to be ineffective at countering its symptoms. Depression medications function by correcting the chemical imbalance in your brain. However, Flibanserin proved to be ineffective in that regard, but yielded a surprising conclusion to the Clinical Trials. You can find our more here.

Clinical Trials Results

As the clinical trials failed to yield expected results, the survey conducted post trial revealed that Flibanserin actually turned out to be a rather effective medication for boosting the libido in women who were experiencing reduced sex drive. A large sample of women, who participated in the trial experienced, significant boost in their sexual drive and desires.

Soon after these surprising results started coming to light, 3 more Flibanserin trials were launched to further facilitate the investigation of its full extent of effects on female libido. A sample of 5,000 volunteers included women whose age ranged between 18 and 40, all of whom were suffering from HSDD (or hypoactive sexual desire disorder) and/or unnaturally deficient sex drive.

In the culture of westerners, an undying belief is that there’s a pill for whatever seems to ail them. This partially provides some insight into Viagra’s tremendous performance. Staying true to the long upheld tradition, there is now a medication that can be used for treating HSDD.

The Good and the Bad

In addition to successful clinical trials, the wide acceptance of this medication is due to its effects of enhancing arousal, sexual desires, as well as urge frequency. Nevertheless, just as every medication, Flibanserin too has side effects that affected about 15 percent volunteers in the trial. While you can rest assured that the effects of this medication are not instant, but may prove to be longer lasting.

While, there aren’t many known remedies of increasing sexual drive and desire in women, Flibanserin may just be the answer to your problems. In order to be sure that Flibanserin is the right medication for you, remember to consult your primary healthcare physician. When it comes down to it, the condition HSDD is not due to the imbalance of neurotransmitters, rather because of psychological disturbances.

Despite the glaring evidence, there are still a large number of people that believe HSDD is a problem that stems from physiological symptoms. Although partially true, an effective way to overcome this issue is figuring out your partner’s most dominant sexual desires and doing your part to accommodate those fantasies. There are a variety of cases in which patients were able to overcome reduced libido by turning away from medication and focusing entirely on the relationship with their significant other.

Flibanserin in the UK

Flibanserin has been approved in the US only. This medication is not available in the UK so if you ask your GP to prescribe it, they will be unable to do so – even if they consider it to be appropriate for you.

It is likely that the licence holder will be applying for a marketing authorisation in the EU in the not too distant future. You can keep up to date with any developments at this health blog.

Over the last thirty years, it has become increasingly difficult to treat gonorrhea with antibiotics, thanks to the bacteria’s ongoing, and increasing resistance to available treatments. According to a new report published in the New England Journal of Medicine, a new strain of the bacteria has been discovered in Australia and alarmingly, this bacterium seems to be resistant to the only treatment options available currently. The discovery of this new strain indicates the need to act fast and find another treatment for what might soon become an untreatable sexually transmitted infection.

The recommended antibiotic treatment for gonorrhea is ceftriaxone, which is thought to be the most effective of the few options still available today. This new strain, A8806, which was found in a woman travelling around the country, does not respond to ceftriaxone however.

The worry here is that we do not know how common the strain is, where it started to spread, and whether or not it even exists in other countries outside of Australia. According to the authors of the report, if the strain does exist elsewhere, it is possible that it is simply not being detected. All we know for now is that the woman who presented with the infection was a European, travelling at the time in Australia. The man she had had intercourse with, one week prior, was also a European traveller.

The woman was subsequently treated with an injection of ceftriaxone and azithromycin taken orally, with success. She tested negative for gonorrhea two months after the strain was first discovered. This would not necessarily be the case for everyone who presented with this resistant strain however. This strain is likely not to respond to current treatment options but this is not definitive. It is also hard to know which of the two treatments won out in the end in this particular case but it is thought that this strain has some sensitivity to azithromycin. Without a doubt, there now exists a resistant strain of gonorrhea that is resistant to our safety gonorrhea treatment, ceftriaxone, among an array of other antibiotics that used to work, which is a potentially serious problem the world over.

In many ways it was fortuitous that the woman was travelling in Australia at the time since research and surveillance on sexually transmitted infection in this country is unparalleled. It might not have been picked up somewhere else. It might not have been caught anywhere else either, but we just cannot be sure about this at the moment. It’s now time for other countries to test for this strain. Once again, the race is on for a gonorrhea treatment that the bacterium will not resist. You can read more about Australia’s race to beat Gonorrhoea here.

Often people who are infected with gonorrhea do not present with symptoms. In this case, they are unlikely to get tested and will continue to spread the infection to new partners. Untreated gonorrhea can lead to infertility and other unpleasant complications in both males and females. The only way to steer clear of the infection is to get tested before new partners and use protection. This infection, like all other STIs can be passed on via unprotected oral and anal sex also. If symptoms are present they will likely include a burning sensation when urinating, a white, green or yellow discharge and painful or swollen testes in males. While there is so much uncertainty regarding the future for gonorrhea treatment, good sexual health practice is vital.

There have been reports of a new medication that may help in the fight against gonorrhoea and you can read more about that at this UK based sexual health testing website – www.theSTIclinic.com

Recently the UK vowed to devote a billion pounds to the fight against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria through donating to the Global Fund. The commitment is expected to save “a life every three minutes”. This donation makes the UK a prime donor of the cause, second only to the USA.

This donation has been praised by Bill Gates, co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who has further suggested other countries to follow the UK’s example. These diseases are preventable and treatable but remain “among the world’s biggest killers” said Ms Greening, International Development Secretary, at the UN General Assembly.

This can only be a great step forward to limiting, once and for all, the number of people infected and the number of lives lost due to these diseases.